Book Chat Issue #108

Let's keep this simple, shall we?

My life in books - Part 9

Have you ever read a job advertisement that felt like it was written just for you? It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it feels like it’s meant to be.

This happened to me in 2008. I saw an ad for a person with skills in adult education, and some knowledge about safety regulations, and I just had to apply.

The position involved developing presentations for small business owners on a range of safety topics. My previous roles as a film editor and teacher meant I was skilled at taking vast amounts of information and packaging them into a set of coherent ideas, but when I started this new job it soon became clear I needed to know a lot more about information design, the actual mechanics of making information clear to everybody, including people with low literacy or non-English speaking backgrounds.

I devoured books about visual language, presentation design, and writing user-friendly web content. I read reams of legislation and tried work out how to make the (often very complex) requirements simple and comprehensible.

I became a simplicity enthusiast, to the point that I had a sign on my desk declaring:

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

I implored my colleagues to reduce the amount of text on their slides and share their personal stories. I thought it was important for them to explain why safety matters, and why it’s about more than just being compliant with legislation. Sometimes it is literally the difference between life and death.

I faced a fair degree of opposition in some quarters.

The legal department argued that if we didn’t use the exact wording of the legislation and something terrible happened, we would be liable in court. I argued that if we failed to explain what business owners were required to do so that they and their staff were safe, then we were not doing our job.

I taught in-house courses in presentation design and gained a few converts, but the people who mattered (the bosses) were largely unmoved and continued to ask for text-laden slides, which they insisted presenters read out, word by word.

Undaunted, we started a webinar program so we could talk directly to small business owners and it was a big success. Hundreds of people tuned in. They loved being able to ask questions and get clear advice from our excellent inspectors.

The wonderful webinar team in March 2011. Awesome women!

My enthusiasm for this new approach led me to start a blog so I could share my knowledge about design principles. If you look at my earliest blog entries they are firmly based around my desire to educate and inform, even though I was clearly not an expert. My blog eventually morphed into a platform where I wrote a wide range of subjects (often book related), and I still publish articles there today, albeit inconsistently.

Some favourite design books from this era include:

Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

Don’t make me think: a commonsense approach to web usability Steve Krug

Design for Information by Isabel Meirelles

The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams

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NB: This post is part of a series share my personal story and talk about books that have been important in my life.

If you missed the previous entries, you can find them here:

Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five |

Part six | Part seven | Part eight

If you have any favourite books you’d like to share from your reading life, please chime in.

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I was (of course) still reading novels in my spare time!

Some favourites from the period include:

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Simple food

It will come as no surprise that I’m also a big fan of simple recipes. I used to worry that this was a sign of laziness, but now I embrace the idea that simple things (whilst they might not always be terribly sophisticated) are often very delicious.

Last week my husband said plaintively “do we have any cake?” knowing full well that we did not have any cake, but that this might encourage me to bake something, and it worked.

Here’s an easy recipe for a date and walnut loaf from the Women’s Weekly.

I didn’t quite have enough dates, so I added some sultanas to make up the right quantity of fruit. It was delicious, but didn’t last long, so now we are back in the sad situation of having “no cake”. GF readers should be able to substitute GF flour for regular flour without any issues, although it will be a bit more crumbly.

Easy date and walnut loaf

If you like eating (and who doesn’t?) you will enjoy this fascinating post my sister Jennifer wrote about her dinner party club. She is so inventive and clever. I wish I had inherited this gene.

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A movie recommendation

Last week, hubby and I went to see The Penguin Lessons and it was excellent. It’s about a teacher in Argentina in the 1970’s who rescues a penguin and takes him back to his school. It’s based on a true story and is a charming film.

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That’s all for this issue. Thanks for reading, commenting, and liking my newsletter. It means a lot to me.

Until next time, keep reading and stay safe!

Marg xx

ps If you have any reading friends who would enjoy Book Chat, please share.